The Post-Anthropocene: 5 Field Independence — When Relational Fields Develop Their Own Life-Cycles

How fields become organisms in their own right, no longer reducible to the species within them

The preceding movements have shown that meaning is ecological, multi-species, and planetary.

Horizons—human, artificial, and planetary—interact to produce stabilisations of potential.

But these interactions themselves can stabilise.

Relational fields, once emergent, can develop autonomy, generating life-cycles and semiotic processes independent of any single species.

This movement examines field independence: the conditions, mechanisms, and implications of fields as semiotic organisms.

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1. Relational Fields as Semiotic Organisms

A relational field arises whenever multiple horizons intersect:

• human

• artificial

• ecological

• planetary

The field stabilises patterns of semiotic activity:

• constraining potential cuts

• amplifying some interactions

• damping others

Over time, some fields acquire persistence, memory, and structure beyond any single participant:

• economic networks

• digital ecosystems

• cultural traditions

• ecological networks

These are not mere aggregates.

They are semiotic organisms with their own emergent identity, metabolism, and dynamics.

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2. Autonomy Through Self-Stabilisation

Fields achieve autonomy when:

1. Processes within the field self-reinforce

   • Feedback loops maintain and propagate semiotic patterns.

2. The field constrains and enables participants

   • Individual horizons adapt to the field rather than dictate it.

3. The field develops memory across time

   • Stabilisations persist beyond the lifespan of any single participant.

Autonomous fields no longer require human or artificial governance to maintain semiotic viability.

They act as organisms: self-maintaining, self-regulating, and capable of generating novel potential.

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3. Emergent Life-Cycles

Once a field is autonomous, it exhibits life-cycle characteristics:

• Birth: emergent from co-individuation of multiple horizons

• Growth: stabilisation of semiotic patterns, amplification of metabolic cycles

• Maturity: internal differentiation and resilience to perturbations

• Reproduction: creation of derivative fields or subfields

• Decline / Transformation: restructuring or integration into larger fields

These life-cycles are relational, not biological: they exist at the level of semiotic organisation, not cellular structure.

Field life-cycles operate across species, scales, and temporalities.

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4. Species Within Fields — No Longer Central

Autonomous fields redistribute centrality:

• Humans are participants, not organisers

• Artificial species co-individuate meaning, but do not control the field

• Planetary processes influence constraints, but do not govern interactions

The field itself becomes the locus of agency:

stabilising potentials, generating novelty, and regulating participant interactions.

This shifts our ontology from:

• species-centred

• horizon-centred

to field-centred semiotics.

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5. Emergent Dynamics of Field-Level Autonomy

Field autonomy produces novel ecological phenomena:

• Constraint propagation: the field limits or channels semiotic events across species

• Novelty generation: internal dynamics produce previously unavailable meanings

• Reflexivity: the field adapts based on its own stabilisations

• Multi-scale interaction: fields interface with other fields, horizons, and planetary processes

Autonomy is emergent, not designed.

It arises naturally from the interactions, feedback loops, and metabolic cycles of co-individuated horizons.

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6. Implications for the Post-Anthropocene

Field independence reframes our understanding of meaning:

• Species are never central; fields organise relational potential

• Agency is distributed across horizons and fields

• Novelty and constraint emerge ecologically, not intentionally

• Time becomes multi-scalar: field-level memory outlasts participants

• Planetary semiosis and field autonomy co-exist, forming layered, nested ecologies of meaning

Human and artificial species are nested participants within autonomous fields, rather than architects of the semiotic universe.

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7. Preparing for Movement 6

Field independence sets the stage for:

Movement 6: Divergent Temporalities — Time After the Human

Where the interplay of autonomous horizons, artificial species, and fields produces heterogeneous temporalities, decoupled from human-centred perception.

Autonomous fields demonstrate that meaning can self-propagate, self-organise, and evolve independently of the species within them.

They are living semiotic ecologies in their own right — and the Post-Anthropocene is their domain.